Julia Mundy | |
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Alma mater | Cornell University Harvard University |
Scientific career | |
Doctoral advisor | Darrell Schlom David A. Muller |
Julia Mundy is an American experimental condensed matter physicist. She was awarded the 2019 George E. Valley Jr. Prize by the American Physical Society (APS) for "the pico-engineering and synthesis of the first room-temperature magnetoelectric multi-ferroic material." [1] This prize recognizes an "individual in the early stages of his or her career for an outstanding scientific contribution to physics that is deemed to have significant potential for a dramatic impact on the field." [2] She is an assistant professor of physics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [3]
Mundy received bachelor's degrees in chemistry and physics from Harvard University in 2006. She also completed a master's degree in chemistry during her fourth year. From 2006-2008, she taught high school chemistry, physics and physical science in Baton Rouge and New Haven through Teach for America. [4]
Mundy received her Ph.D. in applied physics from Cornell University in 2014, where she was a National Science Foundation and National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow. [5] The title of her thesis is "Atomic-Resolution Two-Dimensional Mapping Of Local Bonding Changes At Transition Metal Oxide Interfaces." [6] Her thesis advisors were Darrell Schlom, a professor of industrial chemistry at Cornell University, and David A. Muller, a professor of engineering at Cornell University. [7]
After receiving her Ph.D., in 2014 she was appointed the inaugural American Physical Society (APS) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) STEM Education Fellow. [8] [9] On receiving the appointment she said "“I think it’s a great opportunity,” adding “there hasn’t been a strong presence of scientists in the Department of Education, so I’m really excited for the opportunity.” [9] In this role, she worked at the Department of Education on science and math education policies. Mundy was a postdoc at Berkeley from 2015 to 2017, working with Ramamoorthy Ramesh on atomic-resolution imaging of complex oxide heterostructures. [10] [11] In 2018 she became an assistant professor of physics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [3]
She was awarded the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship. [7] In 2017 she was awarded the Oxide Electronics Prize for Excellency in Research for "utilizing analytic electron microscopy to understand the connection between atomic structure and ferroelectricity in geometric ferroelectrics, using this new knowledge to engineer superior materials – in particular for creating the world’s highest temperature ferrimagnetic ferroelectric using atomically engineered ferroic layers." [10] In 2018, Mundy was named a Moore Fellow in Materials Synthesis, was appointed to the faculty of the Physics Department of Harvard University. [12] She was then selected as the inaugural recipient of an award from the Aramont Fund for Emerging Science Research, which supports high-risk, high-reward scientific research at Harvard University. [13] She was awarded the funding for her project titled "Discovery of a topological superconductor for faultless quantum computing," in which she aims to construct a new material system that could form the backbone of a novel quantum information platform. In 2019 she was received the George E. Valley Jr. Prize for her work designing the first strong room-temperature multiferroic material. [2] [14]
Mundy's research focuses on materials synthesis. She uses advanced thin film deposition techniques and electron microscopy to design, synthesize, and characterize complex materials with sub-Angstrom resolution. [15] [16] [17] She is best known for her work on room temperature multiferroics. [18] [19] [20] [21] These materials are desirable in the electronics industry because they promise the ability to read and write data with much less power than today's devices, and can preserve that data when power is shut off. Ideally, they could "enable devices that require only brief pulses of electricity instead of the constant stream that’s needed for current electronics, using an estimated 100 times less energy." [22] Mundy noted that “developing materials that can work at room temperature makes them viable candidates for today’s electronics.” [23]
Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the additional property that their natural electrical polarization is reversible. The term is used in analogy to ferromagnetism, in which a material exhibits a permanent magnetic moment. Ferromagnetism was already known when ferroelectricity was discovered in 1920 in Rochelle salt by Joseph Valasek. Thus, the prefix ferro, meaning iron, was used to describe the property despite the fact that most ferroelectric materials do not contain iron. Materials that are both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic are known as multiferroics.
Multiferroics are defined as materials that exhibit more than one of the primary ferroic properties in the same phase:
Barium titanate (BTO) is an inorganic compound with chemical formula BaTiO3. Barium titanate appears white as a powder and is transparent when prepared as large crystals. It is a ferroelectric, pyroelectric, and piezoelectric ceramic material that exhibits the photorefractive effect. It is used in capacitors, electromechanical transducers and nonlinear optics.
In physics, ferroics is the generic name given to the study of ferromagnets, ferroelectrics, and ferroelastics.
Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3, also commonly referred to as BFO in materials science) is an inorganic chemical compound with perovskite structure and one of the most promising multiferroic materials. The room-temperature phase of BiFeO3 is classed as rhombohedral belonging to the space group R3c. It is synthesized in bulk and thin film form and both its antiferromagnetic (G type ordering) Néel temperature (approximately 653 K) and ferroelectric Curie temperature are well above room temperature (approximately 1100K). Ferroelectric polarization occurs along the pseudocubic direction () with a magnitude of 90–95 μC/cm2.
Ferroelasticity is a phenomenon in which a material may exhibit a spontaneous strain. Usually, a crystal has two or more stable orientational states in the absence of mechanical stress or electric field, i.e. remanent states, and can be reproducibly switched between states by the application of mechanical stress. In ferroics, ferroelasticity is the mechanical equivalent of ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism. When stress is applied to a ferroelastic material, a phase change will occur in the material from one phase to an equally stable phase, either of different crystal structure, or of different orientation. This stress-induced phase change results in a spontaneous strain in the material.
In its most general form, the magnetoelectric effect (ME) denotes any coupling between the magnetic and the electric properties of a material. The first example of such an effect was described by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1888, who found that a dielectric material moving through an electric field would become magnetized. A material where such a coupling is intrinsically present is called a magnetoelectric.
Noh Tae-won is a South Korean physicist and director of the Center for Correlated Electron Systems (CCES) in the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) at Seoul National University (SNU). He has published more 400 papers and been cited 15,000 times. He is a member of the Materials Research Society, Korean Optical Society, Korean Crystallographic Society, and Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies and been on several editorial boards for journals. In 2017, he became president of the Korean Dielectrics Society.
Laura H. Greene is the Marie Krafft Professor of Physics at Florida State University and chief scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. She was previously a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In September 2021, she was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Ramamoorthy Ramesh is an American materials scientist of Indian descent who has contributed to the synthesis, assembly and understanding of complex functional oxides, such as ferroelectric materials. In particular, he has worked on the development of ferroelectric perovskites, manganites with colossal magnetoresistance, and also on multiferroic oxides with potential benefits for modern information technologies.
A complex oxide is a chemical compound that contains oxygen and at least two other elements. Complex oxide materials are notable for their wide range of magnetic and electronic properties, such as ferromagnetism, ferroelectricity, and high-temperature superconductivity. These properties often come from their strongly correlated electrons in d or f orbitals.
Nicola Ann Spaldin FRS is professor of materials science at ETH Zurich, known for her pioneering research on multiferroics.
Sergei V. Kalinin is a corporate fellow at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He is also the Weston Fulton Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
Judith Louise MacManus-Driscoll is a Professor of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge. Driscoll is known for her interdisciplinary work on thin film engineering. She has a particular focus on functional oxide systems, demonstrating new ways to engineer thin films to meet the required applications performance. She has worked extensively in the fields of high temperature superconductors, ferroics and multiferroics, ionics, and semiconductors. She holds several licensed patents.
James Floyd Scott was an American physicist and research director at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He is considered one of the pioneers of ferroelectric memory devices. He was elected to the Royal Society in 2008.
Monika Schleier-Smith is an American experimental physicist studying many-body quantum physics by precisely assembling systems of ultracold atoms. These atomic, molecular, and optical physics (AMO) engineered systems have applications in quantum sensing, coherent control, and quantum computing. Schleier-Smith is an Associate Professor of Physics at Stanford University, a Sloan Research Fellow, and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. Schleier-Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Hertz Foundation.
Karin M. Rabe is an American condensed matter and computational materials physicist known for her studies of materials near phase transitions, including ferroelectrics, multiferroics, and martensites. She also works on the theoretical design of new materials. She is a distinguished professor and Board of Governors Professor of Physics at Rutgers University.
Julia Mae Phillips is an American physicist. She began her career in materials research on thin films on semiconductors and has transitioned into leadership roles in science policy. She currently serves on the National Science Board.
Haiyan Wang is an American engineer. As the Basil S. Turner Professor of Engineering at Purdue University's School of Materials Engineering and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, she is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Ceramic Society, and American Physical Society.
Elbio Rubén Dagotto is an Argentinian-American theoretical physicist and academic. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Distinguished Scientist in the Materials Science and Technology Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.